Rhode Island Government records cover a broad range of genealogy subject areas that can help you as part of your research, such as land ownership, courts, taxes, and naturalization’s. Given that Rhode Island court records cover such a wide selection of topics, they could aid you in many different ways. As an example, they could aid you in finding ancestors’ residences, identify occupations, locate financial information, determine citizenship status, or shed light on relationships between individuals. The whole thing relies upon on the type of court records that the ancestors” names show up in. For Definitions of all court terms see the Genealogy Encyclopedia.

Rhode Island Courthouse records change extensively from county to county in both level of quality and volume. You will find different kinds of court records that are most likely to possess information related for your genealogical research below.

Rhode Island Court Records

Ever since Rhode Island’s counties have been created, in 1729, the courts have only kept county-wide records. The entire state’s court cases were handled by the general court of trials and its lower courts before that point. The Rhode Island Superior Court Judicial Records Center, 1 Hill Street, Pawtucket, Rhode Island 02860 holds the 1645 to 1900 records for state and colonial courts. Criminal and civil courts were formed in 1729. They were known as the superior court of judicature and the court of common pleas, respectively. Each county’s court records contain divorce, debt and trespass records. See Also Research In Court Records.

Rhode Island Land Records

Land records were recorded in deed books or in proprietors records and filed in the town office of each Rhode Island town beginning whenever each town was founded. Due to the way in which those records were originally recorded and a number of other factors, many of them are indexed, but the indexes are not all the same. Some are much more accurate or contain much more useful information than others. For example, some indexes of grantors/grantees list full names, others list first initials and surnames, and some only list surnames.

Proprietors divided their lands into lots. However, not all plots of land were easy to identify or divide equally. So, in some cases, a system of bounds and metes was used in the descriptions of the land.

The first volume of Records of the Colony of Rhode Island included many deed records. However, the Rhode Island Archives does have some 1640s records that were not part of that volume on file. See Also Guide to U.S. Land Records Research

Rhode Island Probate Records

All other New England states at some point used probate districts or counties for the purpose of organizing probate functions. However, Rhode Island has always kept its probate records according to town. Each town’s council handled probate functions. Each town’s council handled appointing administrators, inventories, estates, wills and similar functions. However, each town had a different system of record keeping, which sometimes involved will books, council books, or probate books. Town functions weren’t split into separate books in a uniform way until much later. So, earlier records may be a bit disorganized. See Also Guide to U.S. Probate Records Research

Rhode Island Tax Records

The Rhode Island Historical Society, Rhode Island State Archives, and each individual town clerk’s office each hold some Rhode Island tax records, several of which were recorded prior to the Revolutionary War. Most town clerk’s offices have an inventory available of whatever tax lists they have on file. Yearly tax records can be a good indication of a particular family’s social status and presence in a given community. However, most tax records are not officially inventoried. See Also Guide to U.S. Tax Records Research

Rhode Island Immigration & Naturalization Records

The slave trade thrived in Rhode Island, especially in Bristol and Newport. Those were also entry points for immigrants later on, as was Providence. The National Archives-New England Region holds the immigration records.

The National Archives-New England Region holds the NARA M575 publication on microfilm. That includes passenger records from the U.S. Customs Service for Bristol and Warren from 1820 to 1871, as well as Newport from 1820 to 1857 and Providence from 1820 to 1867. The National Archives also has passenger lists up to 1943 and the Index to Passengers Arriving at Providence, R.I., June 18, 1911-October 5, 1954 (NARA microfilm publication T518) on file.

The National Archives-New England Region has soundex cards covering 1790 to 1906 for New England. All Providence Federal District Court naturalizations granted between 1842 and 1904 are included in those soundex cards.

Unfortunately, not all Rhode Island naturalizations were granted by the Federal District Court. Both state and county court could grant them as well. That means that some records can be difficult to locate. The Rhode Island Superior Court Judicial Records Center holds several records that used to be housed at the Providence College Library. A microfilmed personal name index for those records for the years 1793 to 1900 can be found at both the State Archives and the Records Center. See Also Guide to U.S. Immigration Records Research

Rhode Island, Indexes to Naturalization Records, 1890-1992 This database contains an index to petitions for naturalization from 1906-1991 filed in various federal courts in Rhode Island. Information that may be found in this database for each individual includes: Given name and surname, Court where petitioned, Naturalization date, Birth date, Nationality, Arrival port, Arrival date, A reference to the location of the original record including a volume number, page number and record number. Other information found on the cards, but not indexed includes occupation, present address, and names, occupations, and addresses of witnesses.

Rhode Island County & City Government Links

Although Rhode Island is divided into 5 counties. , it does not have any local government at the county level. Instead, local governance is provided by the eight cities and thirty-one towns. Counties in Rhode Island have had no governmental functions since 1846 other than as court administrative and sheriff corrections boundaries which are part of state government.

The links in the table below link to county and city government offices and is limited to government-maintained websites. If you know of a Rhode Island county that has an official government web site but is not linked, or if the link is in error, please contact us so we may edit our database. Rhode Island State Government is located in Providence.